Time Travel by Jon Voss

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Description: I envision a city-wide project that would turn tech busses into rolling curated exhibits of neighborhood history. I didn’t go crazy with the photo, but you can see the idea for a Mission bus, which would show different eras of neighborhood history (see image credits below). The idea is that each bus would be a project based at a neighborhood school, and would examine the history of the city and a specific neighborhood from the Ohlone to the present day residents. What have been the changes in the built environment and natural landscape? What have motivated previous waves of migration? What have been negatives and positives of these changes? How would you plan a future San Francisco?

As part of this project, students would explore artistic and photographic content from potential partners like SF Public Library, California Historical Society, SF MUNI Archives, Chinese Historical Society of America and many others. Photos that are used for the buses would be licensed from the archives, supporting these institutions as well. They would represent the cultural diversity of the city and specific neighborhoods over time, underlining important moments in our city, our shared history and a vision for our future.

About the contributor: I’ve lived in the Mission for nearly 20 years, and also happen to be a “techie” and a community organizer. I’m the Strategic Partnership Director for Historypin, a nonprofit public history platform that builds community around local history. Historypin is used widely in education and cultural heritage programs around the world and has created projects in partnership with organizations like the National Archives, San Francisco Public Library, SF MUNI Archives and Stanford University to name a few.

The California State Park Foundation’s Park Champions program is committed to providing consistent, sustainable, and ongoing volunteer support to park staff throughout the state. We are currently looking for more volunteers to help out at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. Each month, we hold one Wednesday workday at Candlestick from 9am to 1:30pm. These workdays focus on assisting park staff with light maintenance. Projects include: tree trimming, brush removal, weeding,...

Operation Babylift: Perspectives and Legacies explores the diverse experiences and lasting impacts of a dramatic airlift that removed more than 2,000 Vietnamese children from their war-torn country to be adopted by American families as Saigon fell in April 1975. The extraordinary story continued at the Presidio, where more than 1,500 of these children were transferred before being placed with adoptive families. As 5,400 volunteers in the San Francisco Bay Area...